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Nathaniel “Nate” Webster Jr., a former Cincinnati Bengals linebacker, often went to cookouts and socialized with friends at his Symmes Township home, so when he needed a baby sitter, he asked the 15-year-old daughter of one of those friends.

That, though, may have been part of an excuse to begin a sexual relationship with the teen that went undiscovered for two years - because, a Thursday indictment alleged, Webster used guns to intimidate the girl into keeping quiet about their relationship. Sometimes when they had sex in Webster’s car, the girl told police, Webster also had a gun in clear sight.

“It’s a disgusting thing to live under the threat of this,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Thursday. “This conduct occurred dozens of times. … In his car, his home, a park nearby.”

Webster, 33, was indicted June 10 on seven charges – sexual battery, gross sexual imposition and five counts of unlawful sex with a minor – but that indictment was sealed until Webster’s Thursday arrest.

At his Thursday arraignment, Webster pleaded not guilty. He was ordered held on a $1 million bond by Common Pleas Court Judge Ralph “Ted” Winkler.

Webster is accused of telling the girl if she revealed the sexual relationship he would kill her and her family, Deters said.

She lived with the secret of her sexual relationship with Webster and being deathly afraid of him until her father took another job out of town and she told him. He contacted police. The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office served search warrants on Webster’s home at about 7:30 a.m. Thursday and found four guns - including a semi-automatic rifle - and a small amount of marijuana, Deter said.

Webster was 31 and the girl 15 when the alleged relationship started.

“It was two years of this violent abuse,” Assistant Prosecutor Megan Shanahan said. “She was tired of being robbed of her youth.”

The alleged acts took place June through December 2009.

Deters said Webster was only indicted on charges when the girl was 15.

“There could have been a mountain of charges” otherwise, Deters said. “There is overwhelming evidence of his guilt.”

Webster is the father of seven with four women, Deters said.

The former Bengal was hired in 2010 as the defensive coordinator for Bellevue High School. David Eckstein, an assistant principal at Bellevue, said Thursday that Webster coached there for part of last year but returned to Florida for “family issues.”

“When he was here, our kids really got a lot out of him,” Eckstein said. “He was a very positive coach, very nice to our kids. We never saw anything negative from him.”

Webster was a linebacker from the University of Miami who signed with the Bengals as a free agent after playing for four years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He played in Cincinnati for four games over two years - 2005 and 2006 - before knee injuries ended his Bengal career. He played three more years in Denver, the last in 2008.

In all, Webster played in 99 National Football League games from 2000-2008.Thursday’s charges against Webster carry a maximum prison sentence of 36½ years in prison.